'These are members of our family': Prentice mourned by church he attended

Rev. Jean Morris of Grace Presbyterian Church remembered former Alberta premier Jim Prentice Sunday as “a man of deep conviction and values.” The church is mourning the loss of two its members, Prentice and Calgary optometrist Ken Gellatly, who were killed in a plane crash in British Columbia last week.

The plane crash that killed former Alberta premier Jim Prentice and three other men has left a Calgary church in mourning.

Both Prentice and Ken Gellatly, who also died in last week’s fatal air accident in British Columbia, were longtime members of Grace Presbyterian Church.

As she began Grace Presbyterian’s Sunday service, Rev. Jean Morris offered the prayers of the congregation for the families of the two men.

“Our hearts are broken for them,” said Morris.

“May God’s resurrection promises in Christ provide hope and strength for them and for all of us.”

Prentice, Gellatly, Calgary businessman Sheldon Reid and pilot Jim Kruk all died last Thursday night when the plane they were travelling in crashed minutes after taking off from Kelowna. The cause of the accident is not known and the crash is under investigation by the federal Transportation Safety Board.

Beyond their ties of friendship, Gellatly — a Calgary optometrist — was the father-in-law of Prentice’s daughter Cassia, who is also a member of the Grace Presbyterian congregation.

In an interview after the service, Morris said Grace Presbyterian is grieving for two families who have been deeply involved in the church.

“I think you could feel it this morning,” she said.

Prentice was involved in politics for years, winning high praise for his time in Stephen Harper’s Conservative cabinet as minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, Industry and Environment. After leaving federal politics, Prentice came back in 2014 to win the Progressive Conservative leadership and become Alberta’s 16th premier, only to see his government defeated in last year’s provincial election.

While Prentice seldom talked about his religious beliefs while on the political stage, it deeply informed his personal integrity and compassion, said Morris, who gave the invocation when Prentice was sworn in as premier.

“In my conversations with him, we talked about public service and how deeply committed he was to that, and that’s what really brought him back into politics again . . . the people of Alberta, and certainly of Canada, was who he wanted to serve,” she said.

“Those are values of faith that he expressed in his public life, a sense of vocation, where the world’s needs and our gifts meet.”

Mary Rozsa de Coquet, an elder at Grace Presbyterian, said that while Prentice was not publicly demonstrative of his faith, “he lived it.”

“Unequivocally, he was a man of integrity, more so than any person I’ve ever met in my life,” she said.

“He always thought fully and determined what was right.”

Prentice was a member of the church’s board and his wife, Karen, had served as an elder. Even during the years when Prentice was often away in Ottawa, the family made a point of attending Grace Presbyterian when they could, said Rozsa de Coquet.

Rozsa de Coquet said Prentice played an important role fundraising for the church’s Grace House, which helps women leaving prostitution.

She said the Gellatly family were heavily involved with Inn From the Cold, which helps homeless Calgarians, and she remembered Ken as “always with a smile.”

“When this congregation says that it’s mourning, it’s not just, ‘Oh, that was a person who was in a pew,’ ” said Rozsa de Coquet.

“These are members of our family, with deep and rich ties and connections here.”

The Transportation Safety Board said on the weekend there had been no distress call made from the Cessna Citation — which had no cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder — and that it could take up to a year to determine the cause of the crash. The four men had travelled to Kelowna to play golf and the plane went down less than 10 minutes after taking off for the return flight to Calgary.

While accolades have poured in for Prentice’s career in politics and business, he is also being remembered for his charitable work. Tributes came in from organizations such as the Calgary Police Foundation, where he was a founding board member, and the Children’s Cottage Society, one of the recipients of funds from Prentice’s own charitable foundation.

Daniel Dang, president of the Crescent Heights Community Association in the neighbourhood Prentice called home, said the former premier was also active at the community level.

When the association had run into red tape in constructing a playground, Prentice helped cut through it — while also donating to help get the park built, he said.

Dang said he befriended Prentice after the then-MP rented space for a constituency office in a building owned by his company.

“There were many late nights he would be working at that office,” he said.

Dang said he spoke to Prentice about a week before his death, “and I told him ‘Jim, you should slow down, look after yourself,’ and he said ‘I’m enjoying my life.’ ”

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